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Page 4
Tegn�r, who already in his "Svea" had bewailed the loss of national power
and urged his people to become independent and strong again, joined the
Gothic Union, at the same time expressing his disapproval of a too
pronounced and narrow-minded imitation of old Gothic life and thought.
Erik Gustaf Geijer, the great historian and poet, also a native of
V�rmland and in power of mind and loftiness of ideals almost the peer of
Tegn�r, published in Iduna, the organ of the Gothic Union, a few poems
that faithfully reproduce the old Northern spirit and in strength and
simplicity stand almost unsurpassed. An extremist in the camp was Per
Henrik Ling, an ardent patriot, who, inspired by Danish and German
Romanticism, would rehabilitate the nation by setting before it in a
series of epics the strong virtues of the past, albeit that these often
appeared in uncouth and brutal forms. For the physical improvement of
his countrymen Ling worked out a scientific system of exercise, and
though his epics were failures, largely because they set up coarse models
for an age that aesthetically had risen superior to them, his system of
physical training entitles him to an honored place among the great men of
Scandinavia.
Tegner had been greatly grieved at Ling's literary mistakes. It seemed
to him deplorable that a worthy cause should be doomed to ignominious
failure just because unskilled hands had undertaken to do the work. This
feeling prompted him to undertake the writing of a great epic based on
the old sagas, but excluding their crudities. But it would be a mistake
to think that this was the only force that impelled him to write. Tegn�r
has now reached the heyday of his wonderful poetic powers and he must
give expression to the great ideas that stir his soul. And so he proceeds
to paint a picture of Fritiof the Bold and his times. The great Danish
poet Oehlenschl�ger had already published "Helge", an Old Norse cycle of
poems which Tegn�r warmly admired. This poem revealed to him the
possibilities of the old saga themes in the hands of a master.
Fritiofs Saga did not appear as a completed work at first, but merely in
installments of a certain number of cantos at a time and these not in
consecutive order. In the summer of 1820, cantos 16-19, being the first
installments or "fragments," as Tegn�r himself called them, appeared in
Iduna; the five concluding cantos were completed and published two years
later, and not until then did the poet proceed to write the first part.
The work was finally completed in 1825.
Although the first cantos published had received a most enthusiastic
reception on the part of the people and won unstinted praise from most of
the great literary men, even from many who belonged to opposing literary
schools, an enthusiasm that grew in volume and sincerity as the
subsequent portions appeared, Tegn�r became increasingly dissatisfied and
discouraged because of the task that confronted him and the serious
defects that he saw in his creation. Tegn�r was at all times his own
severest critic and there is found in him an utter absence of vanity or
illusion. "Speaking seriously", he wrote in 1824, "I have never regarded
myself as a poet in the higher significance of the word. -- -- -- I am at
best a John the Baptist who is preparing the way for him who is to come."
[Tegn�r, Samlade Skrifter, II, 436.]
III.
As the basis for Tegn�r's epic lies the ancient story of Fritiof the
Bold, which was probably put in writing in the thirteenth century,
although the events are supposed to have transpired in the eighth
century. But Tegn�r has freely drawn material from other Old Norse sagas
and songs, and this, and not a little of his own personal experience, he
has woven into the story with the consummate skill of a master. He made
full use of his poetic license and eliminated and added, reconstructed
and embellished just as was convenient for his plan. "My object", he
says, "was to represent a poetical image of the old Northern hero age. It
was not Fritiof as an individual whom I would paint; it was the epoch of
which he was chosen as the representative." [Tegn�r, Samlade Skrifter,
II, 393.]
It was Tegn�r's firm conviction that the poet writes primarily for the
age in which he himself lives, and since he wrote for a civilized
audience he must divest Fritiof of his raw and barbarous attributes,
though still retaining a type of true Northern manhood. On this point
Tegn�r says: "It was important not to sacrifice the national, the lively,
the vigorous and the natural. There could, and ought to, blow through the
song that cold winter air, that fresh Northern wind which characterizes
so much both the climate and the temperament of the North. But neither
should the storm howl till the very quicksilver froze and all the more
tender emotions of the breast were extinguished."
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